Guys, cover up please.  It’s evident that no one wants to see your naked body, or get an impression of your naked body through a pair of tight jeans or a small swimsuit.  According to our media, men aren’t attractive, except for the ones that we all except as attractive.  But regular men, guys with jobs, kids,   guys who go to sports bars to watch football, guys who know that they’re lucky to even have conversations with women and have to wish upon stars or flaunt their incomes to have sexual experiences with women, they’re obviously not attractive.  The problem is, that’s most of the men out there.  Most of the men are told that they’re not attractive, not worthy of adoration from the opposite sex, and not allowed to seek it.  In our world, there’s a negative stigma behind that.  Women say that men are too hairy, so they groom themselves in new places, and that’s thought of as homosexual.  Women say they like aggressive men, but unattractive aggressive men are called “stalkers.”  Guys who work out too much are too “into themselves.”  Same for guys who are all about their bank accounts.  But men still want attention from women, even though any way they might seek it is considered either gay or gross, or both.

The media doesn’t think men are all that special either.  I think light beer commercials are most indicative of this.  Light beers have their purpose right?  They’re helping us take in fewer calories with beer, which should, in turn, help us look better.  But we’re a gender that has little idea of what looking better is, so the other things we might do to look better like say, keeping up with fashion trends, makes us look less manly.  Personally, I think that an overweight woman and an overweight man in skinny jeans look equally as ridiculous, but only the men get the ridicule.  Why?  Overweight women are still aesthetically pleasing to the desperate hordes of men out there, and overweight men never even get to wonder if women find them attractive.  In fact, most men aren’t expecting to be found attractive, and they aren’t expected to know what “attractive” is.  Really, light beer commercials are making fun of that quest to understand what women want.

There is where the underlying problem starts.  Men are never going to know what women are looking for, because in our culture, seeking that out is considered to be unattractive.  In many instances it’s considered homosexual.  So in our society, a man and woman might be sitting watching “Access Hollywood” and the women might mention that Brad Pitt looks great in a pair of slim-fitting jeans, that Robert Pattinson’s eyes make him look hot, and that Tom Brady’s hair makes him look sexy.  The man, taking all of these things as suggestions, could buy tight jeans, colored contacts, and grow out his hair, and all will make him look like a fool.  What’s worse, men aren’t allowed to even comment on the idea that another man is good-looking, that’s a cardinal sin in our homophobic society.  Women though, can not only alter their appearances to look like other women they’ve heard look better, but they have a free pass to call any and every human cute, hot, sexy, handsome or pretty as they please.  They’re allowed to like and dislike athletes and politicians and television personalities because of physical appearance.  Never is their sexuality questioned for it.

I’ve got no burning desire to judge the looks of other men, mostly because they’re graded on a scale created by women, and I’ve got no idea what the guidelines are.  But I do have a question.  Why are all those guys in this country going to gyms?  Obviously they want to look a certain way and they’ve been told that looking that way is attractive to the opposite sex.  As a trainer, and a former gym meat-head, I know that men work hard in gyms, but eventually they lose perspective.  The only men in our society more worthy of ridicule than nearly-female, skinny jeans-wearing, metro-sexuals looking for female attention, are gym rats with enormous bodies looking for male attention.  That’s right, I think men are at gyms to get attention from other men, which, is at least a slightly homosexual notion.

Men are trapped in an uncomfortable box in today’s society, one that makes body image jut as stressful as it has been on women.  They’re considered too hairy and nasty to be seen, and if they’re not, they’re considered to be too gay to be real men.  If they’re trying hard to look good, they need to “man up” and if they’re being too manly, it scares women.  Here’s a tip on how to be manly, one that every real man I’ve known has ever given to me: Be yourself.  Honestly, opinions out there don’t matter.  Ideally, as men, we don’t want to attract every woman as much as we wished we could have them.  There’s a stark difference.  Attracting every woman takes work, and a great deal of trial and error that might leave a man broke or amidst terrible ridicule.  Being able to have every woman, fantastic as it may sound (fantastic like “fantasy”) entails being yourself, and naturally attracting every woman, like say, George Clooney or Matthew McConaghuey.  These men didn’t build their harem of millions by chasing them all down and wooing them with a bunch of things they needed to buy to be attractive.  These men worked on themselves and their careers until they were desirable.  They challenge themselves, they lead others.  In reality, they’re the only real men left.  The rest just listen to women.